The boys soccer team beat Topeka High 2-1 in a hard fought match on Thursday, bringing their record up to 7-1-4 after losing to Hayden 3-0 earlier in the week.

“We felt distraught by the loss,” senior Marco Zambrano said. “Because we expected to come out with a win, and coming into here we felt a little nervous about how we played.”

The boys started out stronger than they had been in previous games, and got their first goal of the match from sophomore Jimmy Ramirez. After pressing T-High for the first 20 minutes Ramirez fired one from 30 yards out into the right corner. 

“I didn’t think it was going to go in but I shot it high and then it did,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez has eight goals so far with this being his first year on Varsity.

However, they quickly conceded one to T-High after going up, letting one striker pass four Manhattan defenders, and lost possession of the game until halftime. 

“If we would have kept the pressure right after we scored that first goal I think it would have been a very different game,” assistant coach Pedro Espinoza said. “Because once they scored that first goal, they got really confident… and if we had kept the pressure from the beginning and played the same way, it would have been different.”

The game quickly got physical during the second half, and some unconventional decisions from the referee resulted in confusion and frustration for players on both teams. Combined for T-High and Manhattan there were three yellow cards, the most of any home game this season. However, Manhattan scored with 15 minutes left in the match — another one from Ramirez — and managed to hold on to the lead through the whistle. 

“Coach says that we’re soft and it shows sometimes,” Zambrano said. “But I feel like we pushed back towards the end and started getting physical as well.”

Manhattan plays Wichita Northwest and Highland Park next, both at home, on Tuesday and Thursday respectively.